


Getting Out of Wing

by eggsmonday



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, if anyone else wants to pick it up feel free to msg me, ngl im probably not gonna continue this, yes i stole the title from a lion king song
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggsmonday/pseuds/eggsmonday
Summary: Eleanor Shellstrop has been in an airplane before. She's not doing anything illegal this time. She doesn't have a tight connecting flight. She has nothing to be stressed about, nothing to fear.And then the incredibly hot stranger sitting next to her falls asleep on Eleanor's shoulder.





	Getting Out of Wing

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I've never written any kind of fanfiction before, so I hope this is alright. I know it's pretty brief right now, but I'm expecting to be able to write more. I hope you enjoy! Please leave kudos or comments, if you can! Thanks! :)

Eleanor, having found a place for her luggage (okay, maybe she didn't "find" a place so much as she did _make_ one by pulling someone else's out of the overhead bin and onto the floor), makes her way down the aisle to her seat. When she gets to her row, she finds her seat taken.

Irritated, Eleanor smiles with false sweetness. "Um, yeah, hi," she says, and the woman in her seat takes the soft-looking white sleep mask off her eyes. Eleanor continues: "You're in my seat." She shrugs her shoulders exaggeratedly and smiles wider.

The woman pauses, and then says with a voice like bells, "Oh, yes. Sorry, darling. Can't be helped. I'm afraid that you're going to have to sit in the aisle seat. The pilot of my private jet had a stroke this morning, so I have to be here, on a commercial airline, and I don't even get to sit in first class. I will not settle for anything less than a window seat, especially considering these unfortunate circumstances." She smiles back at Eleanor, showing no teeth, and looking as if _she's_ the one being inconvenienced in having to talk to Eleanor.

Eleanor considers calling for a flight attendant to come and make this snooty woman move into the aisle seat, but she decides against it when she sees the gum poking out from behind the woman's tray table. Someone stuck gum on the back of the seat in front of her. Eleanor's seat-partner is in for a nasty surprise. So Eleanor narrows her eyes, still smiling, and takes her seat in the aisle-adjacent chair, happy to let fate run its course.

"I'm Tahani," says the woman, holding out her hand, and her smile seems no less condescendingly indulgent. Eleanor decides that this is too much smiling, so she lets hers drop and shakes Tahani’s hand with a sober expression.

“Eleanor.” She thinks for a moment about something Tahani said earlier. “So, your--uh--private jet…”

“Oh, yes,” Tahani says, smoothing out her floral-patterned skirt. “It’s quite nice. Sometimes we have tea and scones. Nicer than most five-star hotels, really.”

“...Right. But then your pilot had a stroke and died.”

“Oh!” Tahani looks aghast. “No, he didn’t die! He’s in recovery. Had he died, I would have said so, so as not to deprive you of the opportunity to offer your condolences.”

“Gotcha,” says Eleanor, nodding and trying to look like that makes any kind of sense.

She leans back in her seat and closes her eyes, sensing that the conversation seems to have dwindled, but Tahani goes right on talking. Not about her pilot, or even about her private jet. About herself. Anything she can think of, it seems--anything impressive.

“And so I told Cole that of course I had never said that about his brother Dylan…”  
“And then my good friend Beyonce told me something I’ll never forget…”  
“And so I said, ‘No, Mr Hawking, it’s an honor to meet _you_!”

Eleanor is seriously thinking about shoving Tahani’s sleep mask down the woman’s throat when the intercom crackles overhead.

“Hello, everyone!” says a cheery voice. “This is your captain speaking. My name’s Michael, and this is my co-pilot. Say ‘hi,’ Vicky.” An annoyed-sounding woman grunts hello and there’s a whine of feedback; she’s too close to the microphone. The pilot continues: “Our flight today will be around ten hours, so sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself! For those of you in the first-class cabin, there will be complimentary alcoholic beverages and all-you-can-eat shrimp! Now, please direct your attention to the front of the cabin for a short safety demonstration as we begin to taxi.”

Eleanor puts in her earbuds and pulls up Spotify, tuning out the chipper voice of the woman clad in a ridiculous blue-and-purple getup at the front of the cabin. Tahani has replaced her sleep mask over her eyes.

Eleanor lets her mind wander as her eyes rove around the cabin, but then she starts suddenly when her gaze falls on the young man sitting across the aisle from her. He’s looking at her and Tahani with something akin to fear or disbelief on his face. When he sees her looking back at him, he quickly returns his attention to the flight attendant giving the safety spiel, and pushes his glasses up his nose with one finger.

As the plane begins to pick up speed along the runway and the flight attendant, whose name is Jane or something like that, returns to the galley, the man leans across the aisle to whisper to Eleanor, who takes one earbud out.

“The safety information is on the back of the pamphlet in your seat pocket,” he stage-whispers.

“What?”

“I just--I noticed that you, uh, weren’t really paying attention. You should really know the emergency protocol. If you don’t, and there’s an emergency, you can mess it up for everybody on this plane.”

“Look, man,” Eleanor says, trying to appear laid-back and not at all angry, “I wasn’t born yesterday. I think I can handle it.”

It seems like the man is about to add something else when suddenly, that flight attendant materializes between the two.

“Is there a problem here?” she says, smiling brightly, with her hands clasped in front of her.

“Gah,” Eleanor exclaims. “Where did you come from?”

The flight attendant--whose name is Janet, not Jane, according to her badge--points behind her with two fingers, referring to the curtain that separates first class from the general cabin. “Up there.”

“There is a problem,” says the young man. “I think this woman missed the safety demonstration.”

Eleanor glowers at him. “Nope. No, I got the whole thing,” she says.

The man blanches, as if he was expecting her to thank him. “I just think it’s best to--”

“It’s not,” Eleanor says shortly, and turns to Janet. “I’m fine, thanks. I saw it.” As Janet nods and walks briskly down the aisle, Eleanor gives the man seated across from her another death-glare, and then puts her earbud back in.

It’s going to be a long flight. She can tell.


End file.
